The presenter talks ageism, his serious side and his new BBC Two series Hidden
Treasures of...

Griff Rhys Jones recently bought himself a coffin. He’s having it delivered all the way from Ghana. An unusual move perhaps for a 58 year-old with a thriving television career.

“It feels fantastic,” he says. “It was commissioned from Hallowed Coffins in Accra. They make these decorative coffins, rather wonderful works of art, that then go in the ground and rot away.”

In fact, it was bought on one of the journeys that Jones made for his new three-part series about tribal art, which begins tonight on BBC Two. In the first part, Hidden Treasures of Australian Art, Jones visits the Torres Strait Islands off the northern tip of Australia, to see the art and masks associated with rituals from the islands’ headhunting past. It led to some delicate moments. “I didn’t know if it was politically incorrect to say to them that you were once violent, dangerous headhunters, so I left it open until they started telling me.”

Unexpectedly, when it came to some of the most sacred masks, the islanders refused to show them to him. “I wasn’t expecting it,” he says. “I gave a passionate speech about what we were trying to do and they said no. They were fierce guys, they really were.

“The great mystery of the film is we never get to see the mask that’s in the cave on Mobiag, the one that’s supposedly hidden away on Mer…

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“But it’s not just because they don’t want it to go to a museum, it’s simply that only a few people on the island are ever allowed to see it.”

While a series on art may seem a departure for Jones, who over the past few years has presented the series Mountain and Rivers for the BBC, it transpires that he is an art collector with a long-held passion for tribal art, and a carefully assembled collection of masks and textiles. “I buy expensive stuff that I like a lot,” he says. “I find it better than contemporary sculpture. A lot of that has references to African art, but personally I’d rather have a real fang mask. It’s an extraordinary thing of beauty and power.”

The series, however, forced him to confront the “really difficult philosophical conundrums” that surround tribal art. In Hidden Treasures of Indian Art Jones discovers the other side of the beautiful costumes created by the women of the Rabari tribe. “Their tradition involves the subjugation of women and arranged marriages at a very young age, but it also has to it all the colour and ceremony and life of the tribe,” he says.

There were also moments when he felt it important to set aside the comic persona that first made his name. Sitting down with Torres Strait islanders to a meal of the vulnerable marine animal dugong, he says, “I ate the dugong and then I picked up some coleslaw and ate that and I said, ‘And this is coleslaw and it tastes a bit like cabbage mixed up with some mayonnaise.’ We decided to take it out, because it was almost like saying, I’m not taking this terribly seriously.

“I don’t approach presenting as a comedian,” he adds. “I haven’t made a comedy show for 10 years.”

He still sees his former co-stars from Not the Nine O’Clock News though. “I saw Rowan [Atkinson] the other day, he came to the last night of Oliver.” (Jones played Fagin in the West End for most of last year.) “I see Mel [Smith] quite a lot. And I saw Pamela [Stephenson] on the telly [in Strictly].” Did he vote for her?

“I was away. Most of the time I come in, pick up a bag and go out again.”

Jones will be going walkabout again later this year, in a new series for BBC One called Routes of Britain. He’s also doing a series about Captain Cook for ITV. He would like to do comedy again, he says, “but I’m not going to try and kick the door down.”

Does he still have a sense of what a youth audience wants? “They don’t want me,” he laughs. “In fact, an old audience don’t want me. That’s the thing, when you talk about ageism, I don’t want to watch old fogeys. I want to watch young people doing things. That’s true of all human beings, isn’t it?

“Also the great thing when you get to a certain age is, I really don’t give a f--- about what young people are doing or what they want. I imagine [BBC One controller] Danny Cohen has to worry about those things. I don’t. I don’t care.”

‘Hidden Treasures of Australian Art’ is on BBC Two on Friday 25 February at 9.00pm; Wales, 9.30pm